Friday, April 1, 2011

Ah, I'm back! I knew I would be by the end of the week. I've finally got a moment to breathe, so I'm relaxing, rocking to the new Britney Spears CD (have you heard it?) and finally, finally blogging.

As I posted last week, I recently attended the Roberto Capucci Art into Fashion exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It was, in a word, amazing. Capucci was born in 1930, and by the mid-1950's had risen in the Fashion world as a well respected and vied after designer. His styles are intricate and beautiful, with an astounding use of material and color. Unfortunately, pictures of the dresses were not allowed, but I knew I had to leave with some sort of proof of what I had witnessed. That being said, I picked up a pack of postcards in the museum gift shop, which showcase some of my favorite looks. Here, I'll post five of nine of my favorite dresses, in no particular order.

Except my absolutely favorite. That will be posted in Part 2 sometime next week! Here we go.

1.

This dress is a 2009 recreation of Capucci's 1956 original, entitled the Bocciolo or Bud Dress. The fabric is silk taffeta. I love the tight empire waist contrasted with the playfulness of the very full skirt. I'm not sure why, but I could picture Blake Lively wearing this to an awards show (or someone of her similar size!)

2.

My original reaction to this dress was: "Whoa. Talk about color blocking." It appears as though Capucci knew about this trend even in 1992, when he created this Sculpture Dress out of silk satin. Despite the fact that it's main bodice is made up of my favorite color (teal!), I still love this dress, with its playful and bright accents that bring your attention right to the hip. Whether or not I can actually picture someone wearing it is to be determined. That, however, does not mean it is not beautiful in and of itself.

3.

I absolutely love the cascading colors of this gown. Again, Capucci does not want to distract from the beauty of the woman, making sure to still include a flattering waist against the eccentric body of the dress. This creation is entitled Pagoda, for obvious reasons, and was another one of his 1992 creations. Made out of pleated silk taffeta, I can only imagine how absolutely fun it would be to wear a dress like this.

4.

This dress was constructed in 1982 and was aptly entitled Arancia or Orange Sculpture Dress. According to Capucci, he wanted the dress to give off the illusion of peeling back an orange before you go to eat it. I cannot help but feel that a dress like this is almost coming to life. It would move with whoever was wearing it in such delicate ways, with the colors meshing together to create an unearthly effect.

5.

Capucci was apparently inspired to create this dress after watching the ripples that occur after one throws a rock into water. The Nove gonne or Nine Dresses dress is comprised of nine layers of fabric making up the bottom half and train of the dress. Created in 1956, I believe that it was one of the first dresses of Capucci's that began to garner him recognition in the fashion world. And you can see why--it's beautiful! As someone in the museum next to me mused, "Can't you just see Audrey Hepburn in that?"

I'm not at all surprised that Capucci's designs were featured in the Philadelphia Art Museum. The intricacies of the dresses, vibrant colors that they are comprised of, and structural creativity make them really more of art than they are fashion. However, the two are not mutually exclusive, hence the name of the exhibit. Any woman in the past that has worn one of these creations must consider herself amazingly lucky.

This is only part one. Part two will be coming in a few days, I promise you! No more seven day hiatuses are planned for Five Things at the moment.

The scans aren't great, but you can click the pictures for larger images if you'd like to study them more closely. I hope you enjoyed this enough to come back for more...